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Islamic jurisprudence. Challenged by a viewer who equated it with executions of gay people, forced child marriage and the criminalisation of apostasy, John Kiriakou answers that those acts are largely the work of ISIS rather than of any government, and that Sharia is in substance a body of civil law covering inheritance, insurance, education, property ownership and commercial disputes.
Sharia law is Islamic jurisprudence. John Kiriakou, whose undergraduate minor was in Islamic theology, was challenged on air by a viewer who wrote that he had been “blown away” to hear Kiriakou say Sharia was nothing to worry about, and who listed executions of gay people, forced child marriage and the criminalisation of apostasy as evidence.[1]
The rebuttal
Kiriakou answers the list item by item. Gay people are thrown off buildings “by ISIS, not by any government” — and in those cases, he says, ISIS was throwing other Muslims off buildings rather than gay people as such. Against the claim that Islamic societies are uniformly repressive he offers Egypt, Jordan and the Persian Gulf, which he says have very active LGBT cultures.[2] To the charge about child marriage he replies with an American comparison: “Have you ever been to Mississippi or Alabama where it’s legal to marry off a 14-year-old? Come on, man.” On apostasy he concedes the point partially and narrows it sharply — people leave Islam every day, and “the only place where apostasy is punished is Pakistan. And that’s way more cultural than it is religious.”[3]
What Sharia actually governs
The substantive correction is definitional. Sharia law, in Kiriakou’s account, “is not throwing people off buildings or marrying off little girls. That’s not what Sharia law is.” It is instead a body of civil law: “things like, um, inheritance practices or insurance or education or property ownership or disputes involving money between business partners. That’s what Sharia law is. Though the Quran lays out how disputes are supposed to be fixed. That’s Sharia law. Not these acts of violence.”[4]
Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.
